1985 340 GL fuel or ignition problem

Hello,

I have a problem with my 340 GL - at a certain accelerator pedal range the car seems to stop getting fuel / combusting fuel properly. With the pedal hard down or with light acceleration it is fine. It only seems to happen after an hour or so's driving, and gets progressively worse after this.

Has this happened to anybody before? It seems odd to be a timing problem as I thought it would happen all the time, not just when warm. The car ran fine this morning from cold. I've checked the fuel supply which seems to be fine - again, it would be odd as when the accelerator is hard down it works fine. Maybe there is some crud in the carb...

Any opinions/advice would be appreciated.

Dave

I did suffer a similar problem (light acceleration ok - flat out ok )which I never got to the root of (it just went away. Really...) It was however, after about 15 mins driving. I found that if I pulled over for a couple of minutes and stopped the engine, it would start fine and be OK for the rest of the day. Perhaps you wont be so lucky though...

It`s difficult to say what could be causing your problem without a bit more info.

Is your 340 a 1.4 or 1.7 model - I`ve had numerous problems with the 1.4 carb (top cover loose, needing cleaning etc) but have no experience of the 1.7. From what I gather from various newsgroups is that the solex (?) carb fitted to these suffers from warping at the base leading to poor running.

Have you checked all the various bits and pieces such as plugs, leads, dist. cap etc? It may be worth doing this as well as checking the various bits of vacumm pipework from the carb to the ignition module, brake servo and transmission if it`s a CVT.

I assume that you have the Renix electronic ignition as it`s an 85 model - there isn`t a lot you can do with these in terms of servicing or adjustment but there is a fairly comprehensive fault finding section in the Haynes manual. That said, I`ve had 3 340`s and never had any trouble from these.

Let us know how you get on

Will Plummer

I'm now on my 4th 340 and have had this problem with one of them. Stopping for a few minutes usually cleared the problem and it would come and go until I had the carb checked. Make sure all the breather pipes between carb, air filter and rocker cover are ok and not blocked. Also check fuel filter, have you changed it recently?